No Cute Title For This Program
by Manchester
Summary: The Powers That Be are obsessed with balance, such as good and evil, light and dark, vanilla and chocolate ice cream, so it's doubtful that popular entertainment would escape their scrutiny…
1. Chapter 1

Turning away from the hotel window where she'd been impatiently scanning a night skyline of a gloriously illuminated San Francisco, Faith Lehane had started to snap out her annoyed question of when things would "start fuckin' happenin'," only to hastily close her mouth, to instead warily examine the other person in the middle of the room.

There, Willow Rosenberg was sitting in the lotus position, legs crossed and hands resting on her knees, eyes closed and her face bearing a truly placid expression, all while floating in mid-air several feet above the carpeted floor.

Sidling to the nearest armchair by the hotel room coffee table, Faith plopped down into this seat, folded her arms across her chest, and sighed in total exasperation, as she waited some more. She'd been doing that a lot, ever since the New Council had finally gotten things organized a couple of years after the Sunnydale collapse, with the newly-created Slayers gathered together from all over the world and trained at the Scottish castle headquarters, to use their superhuman talents to fight against vampires and other demons.

Thankfully, Faith hadn't been chosen as one of the school instructors, considering that the dark Slayer knew full well she didn't have the patience to put up with even more teenage girls feeling frisky concerning their newfound abilities. Rather, that woman on her road trips around the country, that had her enthusiastically looking for trouble and then giving various creatures of the night a thorough ass-kicking, also had her occasionally teaming up with assorted Sunnydale survivors having their own jobs of setting up Slayer Houses throughout North America.

Basically consisting of several Watchers, about a dozen Slayers, and additional support staff, these Houses would allow the New Council to hopefully create a measure of control for the supernatural activity in the cities these residences inhabited, all without having the big secret of magic and unearthly beings becoming known to the populace at large. However, before this could happen, the organization first had to find the perfect location to permanently and discreetly accommodate a crowd of young woman that spent a lot of their time outdoors at night while lugging along a great many razor-sharp hand weapons.

Once this had been done, before the actual moving-in occurred, there usually took place several meetings and conferences between the New Council representatives and the friendly or neutral demon population, along with the humans involved in the supernatural world such as witches, wizards, mages, sorcerers, and anyone else that for their own reasons knew about what went bump in the night. During these get-togethers, it would eventually be slipped into the conversation, politely enough but always quite firmly, by the New Council envoy that their secret army of Slayers _was_ going to come here, they _would_ be decisively dealing with anyone or anything that might object to this, and it would _truly_ be a shame if things just couldn't be worked out among beings of good intentions before any unfortunate blunders happened that resulted in numerous decapitations. For _them._

At that point, an up-to-then silent Faith usually lurking behind the seat of the New Council spokesperson would now ostentatiously clear her throat, and then send her most evil grin towards the paling humans and demons that certainly knew all about the fiercest Slayer of them all.

So, basically, in her teamwork with the other New Council members, they did all the diplomacy crap, getting whatever information they needed about their newest home, soothing down any ruffled feelings and feathers (which wasn't just a metaphor with some of those avian demons), telling how cooperation by everyone would lead to a more peaceful and non-apocalyptic life for them all, and in effect being the carrot.

Faith was the stick. Or rather, the big, spiked club with matted hair, blood, and traces of brain tissue clinging to the pointed metal barbs.

Hey, she was perfectly fuckin' fine with it. Faith didn't even mind the reunions with the various Scoobies sent to work with her by the big boss hisself, Mr. Tweed, also known as Rupert Giles, director of the New Council. Ever since the massive California sinkhole had happened, the Boston-born Slayer had been on far better terms with those people who'd first met her as a young woman having the world's biggest chip on her shoulder and thought that was all she seemed to be instead of the terrified fifteen-year-old girl that had seen her Watcher murdered and was then chased across the continent by a monster intent upon finishing the job.

To everyone's surprise, after the events with the First Evil and the destruction of Sunnydale, tolerance and trust had been cautiously offered to Faith, and that woman had finally met the others halfway, with the air cleared at last between them all. There were still dark memories not easily forgotten, but in the end, there had been forgiveness and even friendship, as there should have been so long ago.

In her chair inside the San Francisco hotel room, Faith wryly smiled to herself, as she watched Willow still floating in the air while that meditating witch was performing her magical search. *Case in point, Red there. We're actually tight now, with that stuck-up bitch Kennedy haulin' her ass off to Australia after their big breakup, and it's been fun workin' with Miss Magic. She did a damn better job with those three sisters than I woulda.* The Slayer's expression then became a bit more sardonic, as she continued reflecting, *Still, wonder if boss-man sent her here 'cause of the Charmed gals, or if it was another reason, him wantin' to get Red outta his recedin' hair.*

Faith's beginning snickers were quickly cut off by Willow's abrupt opening of her eyes, with the red-haired witch still hovering above the hotel floor then revealing something absolutely uncanny to the Slayer now sitting bolt-upright in her seat. Instead of her normal appearance of a pair of green-colored human eyes, Willow's orbs currently glimmered with a silvery light, with the former Sunnydale resident also whispering in an eerie voice that caused Faith to abruptly develop gooseflesh on her forearms.

"It's starting."

Hurriedly twisting in her armchair, Faith stared out the hotel window, right into the glowing full moon that had just arisen over the horizon, to shine its pale luminosity onto the sleeping city.

At the same time in a Victorian house in San Francisco, six pairs of eyes opened as one, and as they all stared up from their beds at the room ceilings, these particular organs of sight were pure black.


	2. Chapter 2

"They're called the Shadow Court."

As she sipped her tea, Willow raised her eyebrows in polite inquiry over the cup, which resulted in the brunette woman seated across from the visiting witch ruefully shrugging her shoulders, to then appealingly glance at her sisters at her side sharing the large couch in the sitting room of the large mansion located at 1329 Prescott Street in San Francisco.

Seeing the identical mystified expressions of Piper and Phoebe Halliwell, the oldest of the trio turned back to their guests, and sighed, "Frankly, Willow, that name was given to them just as a way to describe those things! We don't know their real names, what they might call themselves, or even if they do that!" Shaking her head in absolute bafflement, Prue Halliwell continued her odd story. "That's not all, either. We haven't the faintest idea of what they are, why they act as they do, or even how long they've been doing it!"

Faith, currently seated in her own armchair by Willow, mumbled through a mouthful of cookie crumbs, "Hey, what's so bad 'bout 'em chopping up lotsa vamps and other demon baddies?" After those last words, the Slayer managed to swallow, only to then shove into her mouth another delicious homemade cookie, beginning to eagerly chomp upon that snack while also carelessly wiggling her own eyebrows to indicate Faith's total lack of concern over Prue's anxious tone.

Giving the three sisters a long-suffering smile, Willow exasperatedly glanced over at Faith already halfway through the platter of cookies she'd been handed just a few moments ago at the beginning of their conversation, and the Wiccan acerbically commented to her friend hogging the snacks, "Well, this _is_ their hometown, Faith, and if the Charmed witches can't find out anything at all about those shadow things, they've got a right to be worried about that!"

Faith managed a somewhat conceding grunt over that, and then she stuffed two cookies at once into her maw. An annoyed Willow turned back to the female trio staring in utter awe at the gorging Slayer, with Piper also beaming at the success of her latest culinary creation. Clearing her throat to regain the others' attention, a frowning redhead now inquired, "I thought you said the first attack was three months ago-"

"Oh, that was just the first one with any surviving witnesses," vaguely answered Prue, who was far more troubled over the sudden panicky thought that maybe this Faith-the-Slayer would finish off her enthusiastic scarfing of Piper's cookies by also consuming their grandmother's antique silver platter in one single bite.

Reluctantly tearing away her attention from this alarming possibility, Prue again gazed at an intent Willow and continued. "It's not like the bad guys really went around complaining that some mysterious enemies made of shadows totally spoiled their plans by consuming every single demon or vampire where those things appeared! But from the rumors we've heard, it's happened several times before, maybe up to another three months before the first survivor watched what happened before they got away and then spread the word."

Willow thoughtfully nodded, with her then prompting the other witch. "And the rest of the onlookers afterwards, their identifies and stories also match?"

"Yes, they were always innocent bystanders, potential victims, sacrifices, people who stumbled onto the attacks, that kind of thing." A baffled Prue then added in her still-puzzled tone. "Somehow, the Shadow Court could always tell apart the guilty from the blameless, and well, they then _ate_ or absorbed into themselves the nasty people before disappearing. Until the next time."

"The other features of the attacks, they haven't changed either?"

Prue shook her head in a firm negative. "No, Willow. There have always been exactly seven of those shadow creatures." The oldest witch of the three sisters now allowed a meaningful pause to occur in the conversation, as her visitor responded with a pensive tilting of her head that caused the brushing of red tresses against her shoulders. While Willow was contemplating the possibly important detail of the occurrence of this significant mystical number, her attention was drawn back to Prue once more speaking.

"Neither has anything else changed. There are always three large shadows and four smaller ones. One of the large shadows might be the leader or commander of the others, since that one usually stays in the middle of whatever place or area they appear in, while the others then attack."

A loud belch suddenly resounded throughout the sitting room, startling every one of the witches there, who next heard the sheepish comment, "'Scuse me. Anyways, that don't mean the shadow-thingie actin' like that is the big boss. Might be the laziest guy of 'em all. Say, what the hell _do_ they look like, 'sides bein' shadows? Humans? Demons? Radio City Rockettes?" Faith smirked at the other women staring at her, with the Slayer then unerringly reaching out with her hand, without looking, to grab the last cookie from the platter.

Over the noisy crunching of that small dessert being happily devoured, a surprised Prue Halliwell took a moment to gather her thoughts, all while being watched by someone with steadily champing jaws, as Faith waited patiently for what's-her-name to answer. The Slayer _had_ been introduced to the Charmed sisters earlier, but Faith had promptly forgotten all three identical names beginning with the letter 'P', with the East Coast native instead derisively thinking at that time, *Musta been a hoot growin' up together for these gals, with 'em all spittin' in each other's faces every time they yelled their sister's name.*

Throughout the meeting, without bothering to tell anyone, Faith had mentally dubbed each of the female siblings with their own identifying nickname. The oldest sister, who'd done most of the talking, was Gabby. Middle sis, who'd made from scratch those yummy munchies, was Cookie-Maker. And li'l gal, the youngest and shyest, who hadn't said a single word to her and Red since the first polite "Hello" was-

"Er, Faith," began Prue, unknowingly breaking into the Slayer's sardonic thoughts. "Nobody who survived was able to see into the shadows to find out what they are. It's agreed that they're some kind of biped, standing on two legs and having two arms, attached to a trunk and with something that might be a head on top. Other than that, nobody knows anything, and we haven't had any success in finding out, either."

"We _do _know something else that might help, Prue," spoke up the middle sister of the Charmed witches, ignoring the surprised look from her older sibling, as Piper instead good-naturedly eyed Faith engrossed in sweeping the tip of her index finger across the now-empty platter, to then pop this digit with its adhering load of cookie crumbs into the Slayer's mouth.

Willow's sudden glower at her indecorous companion ended when Prue nodded in agreement with Piper, adding, "You're right, honey. Anyway, Willow, all of the attacks, whether witnessed or rumored, have one more thing in common." Now sure of their visitors' attention, the brunette witch told them both, "They all took place on the first night of the full moon."

Both New Council members contemplated this interesting detail for a few moments, until Faith now tossed off a sarcastic quip, "Geez, don't tell me there's such a thing as were-shadows." Glancing over at Willow in her friend's adjacent armchair to see how the Scooby Gang associate had taken Faith's wisecrack, the Slayer's own mood abruptly sobered at seeing the red-haired witch's thoughtful face. "I was just kiddin', Red!"

"We've gone up against weirder things than that, Faith, and you know it, just like we're going to do again," dryly reminded Willow.

Faith allowed an irked expression to appear on her features, as she demanded, "Hey, 'bout that - why do we need to do anythin' anyways? So far, all that's happened is our workload's been cut down a bit here, what with those fuckin' vamps and other creeps bein' gobbled up by those shadow dudes. More power to 'em."

Glancing over to the couch across from the arguing pair, where the Charmed sisters sat there listening in growing concern over their guests' sudden dispute, Willow's own exasperated mood became evident in her stern rebuke to the Slayer. "Faith, if the Council is going to put a Slayer House here, I want it to be done without any potential problems waiting for us! For all we know, the Shadow Court might think of the Slayers as a new enemy and go after them!"

Instead of yelling back at Willow, a reaction from Faith that might have been ordinarily expected from someone knowing this Slayer from years ago, the beautiful woman now allowed a wicked smirk to appear on her lips, as she then uttered a truly evil cackle that made the hairs rise on the backs of the necks of the Charmed sisters. "But we're gonna go after 'em first, right? Hunt 'em down, check 'em out, and then do the mojo to the max on 'em if they turn out to be of the bad, seein' if it's even possible to shove a shadow up their own butt."

A deadpan Willow just gazed back at a sadistically snickering Faith, with the witch then mused, "The next full moon's the night after tomorrow, Faith. That'll give me time to do some research and make my preparations, so that I'll be ready then for whatever happens."

"Got your back for that, Red," gruffly said Faith. Only then did she look over at the other three witches gaping at the Slayer, with all the Halliwells struck dumb by Faith's abrupt switch from complaining to mildly accepting Willow's announcement.

Shrugging into their astonished faces, Faith told the sisters, "Hey, havin' words with each other don't mean things are gonna go bad between those who're tight. Just givin' your opinion, and knowin' for sure how they feel, so everybody's on the same page when things go to hell. We - me an' Red an' some others - we seriously fucked up years ago not doin' that, so we make sure now that it's all cool when we need to. Sorry 'bout gettin' into it right in front of you."

Prue was the first to respond, helped along by casting a hasty glance at Willow's beaming smile as that much more powerful witch firmly nodded in full agreement with her friend. "Oh, that's all right, Faith. I have to admit-" (the oldest sister now shot a quick glare at her siblings, who disrespectfully grimaced back) "-that what you said might also be a good idea for other people to try."

"Yeah, right," chuckled Faith, just barely managing to control herself when the Slayer saw out of the corner of her eye both of the younger sisters sticking out their tongues towards an unknowing Gabby, whose attention was otherwise upon her guests. "Well, Red, we got anythin' else to talk 'bout?"

"No, Faith," replied a pleased Willow, as she now stood up from her chair, and held out her hand for a farewell handshake. As everyone else arose from their seats and made their goodbyes, with Willow also assuring the Halliwells that a full account of her and Faith's coming experiences with the Shadow Court would be passed along to the sisters, whatever happened. During all this, Faith was diverted by something she hadn't expected.

As the Slayer gently shook the hand of the youngest Halliwell sister, this woman gave Faith a merry grin, and then she whispered her first words of the entire meeting, "Faith, Piper made more cookies for the rest of us. Would you like my share? I'll wrap them up for you in a napkin, and you can take them back to your hotel."

In her sudden glee in getting even more of those fabulous snacks, Faith totally forgot herself, and she then managed to turn an ordinary meeting into a truly memorable occasion between the Charmed sisters and the Scooby Gang. An uproarious event to be remembered forever by all there in the room, and also told only to those really special people allowed to know about it, how Faith Lehane, unable to keep track in this woman's mind all those 'P' sisters and making up her own nicknames for each, now let her tongue get away from her in the Slayer's enthusiastic response.

"Hey, thanks a lot, Big Tits!"


	3. Chapter 3

Faith grimly kept her stomach under iron control, all while hoping that this was the last time she and Willow were going to teleport around San Francisco. As the Slayer glanced over at the witch standing next to herself, with the redhead's right hand lightly resting on the brunette woman's left shoulder, it looked like this was correct, considering that Willow was intently staring at the vacant factory before them both, somewhere in a run-down industrial area of that California city just after midnight with the full moon glowing at its brightest in the night sky. It looked like they'd found it at last, tonight's spot where the Shadow Court was about to attack their latest victims.

The superhuman woman inwardly sneered at that description of the quarry of those unknown shadow creatures. It was fitting enough that a bunch of vampires and evil demons, whose normal prey were the humans that the New Council had vowed to protect, would now find out just what it was like to be mercilessly eradicated. Still, as Faith had come to agree with her friend, it was essential that the pair found out as much information as they could, before any further action could be taken, whether in support of or in opposition to the Shadow Court.

So, when Willow had mystically sensed just a few minutes ago the appearance of those mysterious beings somewhere in the city at the exact moment the lunar satellite arose over San Francisco, that immensely powerful witch had started using her magic to track them down. In hurried asides to Faith, while most of Willow's attention was diverted to her work, the witch had muttered things like, "…really faint, but it's there…don't want to jump right in on them…random leaps at first, then triangulate by direction and distance…okay, Faith, let's go!"

At those last words in their hotel room, Willow had grabbed hold of the Slayer's shoulder, and keeping Faith in her firm grip throughout the next dozen magical teleportations, they'd finally wound up here and her insides had stopped churning, so it was now time for Faith to get busy. Sending her own hard look directly at the darkened factory, the Slayer used the superhuman senses she'd first acquired as a fifteen-year-old street kid, to thoroughly examine that building by sight, smell, and something else known simply to the Scooby Gang as Slayerness, to finally give a slow nod that clearly signaled nothing else but 'Gotcha!' as the woman fiercely confided to her friend.

"Vamp nest in there, Red, big one, plus a coupla other demons of the worst kind. Don't feel anythin' different from the usual- Whoops!"

As Faith then grunted in surprise, Willow, even with her normal human ears, managed to hear the faint screams and howls of fright and panic abruptly emitting from the factory, with the sounds then ceasing equally suddenly. Faith didn't like that, particularly as Willow now had an expression of faint worry appear on her features, with the witch now making a few mystic gestures that didn't seem to actually do anything except to cause her to look a bit more alarmed.

"Faith, they're here, the Shadow Court, and there's also another magic-user inside there! A pretty powerful one, too, judginging by the size of the wards that just went up."

This time, the lurch in Faith stomach wasn't from any of Willow's teleportations. Having the strongest witch in the world say somebody in the factory was equipped with serious mojo meant that whoever or whatever in there might be as dangerous as a pocket-sized nuke. A sudden horrible thought then crossed Faith's mind. "Red, is the Big Bad controllin' the Shadow Court, or fightin' 'em, or-"

Willow broke into Faith's concerns, all while frantically waving her hands in more anxious mystical gestures. "I can't tell! Not from here, and I don't want to risk attention from either side by boosting up myself-"

"'Kay, then we go in, sneak up close as possible, and eyeball the sitch, see what's the score and who're the players."

Willow's face scrunched up for a moment in furious thought, and then her features ruefully relaxed into a reluctant nod of agreement regarding Faith's quick plan, which seemed to be the most reasonable course of action, even if it was still an extremely dangerous thing to do at this exact point. With her mind now made up, Willow barked "GO!" and as Faith promptly took off at full Slayer speed, dashing directly towards the factory, the witch then made some very complex gestures with her hands.

Already halfway to the factory, with her eyes closed to slits against the wind blast from her flat-out run, Faith felt her skin suddenly tingle with the familiar sensation of protective and shielding magics being cast upon herself. At the same time, she also saw from the corner of her nearly-shut left eye an equally typical event, at least in the strange lives of New Council members. There, on her left side, Willow was calmly floating several inches off the ground in a standing position while also effortlessly gliding along, matching exactly Faith's 80-mph speed, as both neared the factory.

Probably the most jaw-dropping part of all this, for at least anyone who hadn't already seen it as often enough as Faith had, was the fact that Willow Rosenberg was right now almost completely transparent!

A while back during an idle whim, that witch had used her magic to once more recreate the particulars of the Chaos spell that years ago had changed this then-teenager into a ghost on Halloween, all due to the fact that a visiting English sorcerer had gleefully sold to the populace of Sunnydale various holiday costumes that had been imbued with an enchantment to turn the wearers into their trick-or-treat outfits for real. Willow had wound up becoming an insubstantial phantom because she'd decided to attire herself in her usual generic ghost costume, until the spell had finally ended and she then returned to her normal, solid body.

A long time later, after casually telling the story to some of her student witches at the Scottish castle of the New Council headquarters, Willow had become intrigued enough to see if she could actually do this on her own now, without recourse to something so dangerous as Chaos magic. After some cautious experimentation, a thrilled Willow had succeeded in once more becoming a ghost and then returning to life again, though that specific triumph was accompanied by something very startling also discovered by an astonished redhead.

Considering how much she'd paid for them ever since Sunnydale and after, in soul, body, and spirit, Willow was properly appreciative and mindful of her immense magical powers, but it was really a pain in the neck when she then occasionally had to spend half her time placing mental dampers upon these mystical energies lest she shatter every crystal ball in the British Isles, or cause some supernatural Big Bad a continent away to immediately wet their pants and disappear when they'd sensed she was about to turn her full Resolve Face towards them.

This completely changed when Willow became a ghost. She still possessed all of her powers, but when the witch shifted into a spirit form, those forces now became virtually impossible for any other magic user to sense, giving Willow a rare chance for both anonymity and concealment in the mystical world. The only drawback to this happy state of affairs was that such an intangible apparition also had a great deal of difficulty in actually _using_ these same corporeal energies, unless Willow simply turned back into her usual physical body. Which often enough started again the whole "IT'S THE RED WITCH!" business, at times when that issue wasn't really such a good thing to happen.

Like when you're trying to sneak up on a demon mage that you _had _to find out what he, she, it, them (or something for which no earthly pronoun exactly applied) was busy with, involving some kind of shadow beings that neither Willow nor Faith had ever heard of before. A total lack of information also shared by everyone else back at the New Council headquarters, which wasn't all that comforting for those two women just about to invade an entire building full of those creatures.


	4. Chapter 4

With the shut steel side door of the factory coming up fast for both of the women rushing towards this entrance, Willow hastily lifted an index finger, to then point this digit at the locked and/or bolted panel in preparation for magically opening it. Otherwise, an impatient Faith would surely kick it down, with the noise from this announcing their presence to everybody inside, something that was so absolutely not such a good idea-

The whole point abruptly became moot, when the door slammed open, and someone else came running full-tilt out of the building. Momentarily flinching away during her dash straight at this person to avoid colliding with them, Faith then saw the ridged face, glowing yellow eyes, and fangs, and the Slayer promptly pulled out a stake from her clothing and she held it ready. In the very next instant, the heedless vampire in his panicky sprint, not shifting his direction the slightest, ran right into the stake and immediately puffed into a cloud of ashes that went swirling along after Faith in the wind of her passage.

As Faith now burst through the open doorway into the factory and started slowing down from her own run while also warily searching for any other potential enemies, she bemusedly thought to herself that what just happened had to have been her easiest vamp kill ever. It was like that demon hadn't even noticed her, and the Slayer felt a prickle of rare apprehension tingle down her spine, as she also remembered seeing for a split-second the look of absolute terror upon the fleeing vampire's deformed features. What exactly could have scared that blood-drinking monster so much?

Now soundlessly slipping through the trash-strewn building corridors in near-absolute darkness, past hulking pieces of machinery that had spent the last couple of decades peacefully rusting away, a baffled Faith, with her heightened senses that easily pierced the gloom, glanced over at her companion, as Willow's intangible body easily drifted through whatever the Slayer had to sidestep. The witch with the perplexed expression on her features over what she'd just witnessed simply shrugged in mutual incomprehension, easily seeing Faith's confused face in the dark with her own magic, and then Willow looked ahead, suddenly raising her right hand in clear warning.

Faith didn't really need this signal, considering she heard quite well ahead the disquieting sounds of objects being loudly smashed and broken, along with numerous terrified voices screaming, with the tremendous uproar all having the Slayer unable to make out any comprehensible words. Coming to a halt in front of a massive, boxcar-sized, corroded apparatus that had probably manufactured its last widget fifty years ago, Faith cautiously peeked around the machine, with a ghostly Willow at her side doing the same.

In the center of the factory, under a shattered skylight that allowed the full moon above to vividly illuminate the fantastic scene, about a dozen vampires and other demons were making their last stand. These monsters were huddled together in a rough circle while grabbing hold of the discarded building materials around themselves and then hurling such things as rotting tables, decaying wooden crates, rusted steel rods, and even chunks of concrete ripped from the structure's floor. All of this rubble went sailing through the air at considerable speeds after being thrown with the more-than-human strength of the demons, to finally crash and shatter against the walls of the factory and other crumbling pieces of building equipment that were becoming even more damaged by these unearthly monsters' desperate actions.

Not that these efforts were in any way successful against the Shadow Court, since every scrap of litter passed through the bodies of those uncanny creatures there with all the effect of tossing a marble through a smoke cloud.

Seeing for the first time what they'd come to investigate, Faith's jaw dropped, as she now understood why those things had been so named. They were…darkened shapes, outlines of something crudely formed like a human or other two-legged being, but within the lines of their forms, there was an absolute blackness that hid any possible clue to identify these things. Even Faith with her Slayer sight that rivaled the keen vision of a falcon was totally unable to peer past the obscurity of the shadows to recognize anything that might indicate race, species, sex, age, or even if they were really alive or not! Hastily shooting a shocked glance at Willow by her side, Faith saw the witch was also staring in total absorption at those seven beings, and the brunette woman went back to her own fascinated observations.

Yes, as mentioned by the Charmed sisters, there were seven of these things, easily discernable despite being spread out in their own, bigger circle around the smaller circle of the demons currently at bay. Drifting a few inches above the ground, just like Willow was presently doing in her ghostly form, there were indeed three big shadows and four smaller shadows. A pair of the undersized shades hovering side-by-side were directly in front of Faith and Willow, and as these New Council members continued watching, one of the vampires easily picked up a large wooden crate still filled with its weighty contents that was resting on the factory floor by that fiend, and right after that, the box was heaved at these shadows.

A dumbfounded Scooby Gang duo saw the crate tumble in the air, as just like everything else thrown, it then went right through both of the unaffected shadows, heading unswervingly at the piece of equipment where Faith and Willow were lurking. The Slayer instantly ducked behind this machinery and dropped to her knees onto the concrete floor, wrapping her arms around her head, just in time to wince at the thunderous crash of the hurled crate shattering into innumerable fragments, as the manufacturing apparatus this box had just collided with shuddered at the impact. Prudently keeping her hands in place as descending debris pattered around Faith, this woman shot an exasperated glance out of the corner of her eye at a totally unaffected ghost-Willow still standing on her feet and watching intently at what was taking place in the center of the factory.

Grumbling under her breath, Faith stood up, bringing down her hands to brush off wooden splinters off her shoulders, and then the woman forgot all abut this, when she caught sight of what was happening before her now. The vampire that had just thrown the wooden crate was hastily backing up, utter terror on his ridged face, until the demon whirled around and dashed away from the circle of trapped monsters, inwards into the middle of this ring, where the vampire then slammed to a stop as his outstretched hands smacked into something invisible. Faith's eyes narrowed, as she looked past the panicked vampire now frantically pounding his fists against a wall of solid air, all while screaming for help from the other demon behind this mystical shield.

In the very center of the factory, this green-scaled demon was dressed in a rather tawdry purple robe with numerous geometric-shaped pieces of crystal inlaid on various points of the robe. Ignoring the vampire outside the protective ward he'd just cast, Ig'yrul the Sorcerer desperately tried to use his supernatural powers to find out just what had attacked them, how they could be defeated, or failing that, casting the quickest spell of escape that would take him to a safe place as far away from here as possible. Needless to say, his minions were on their own.

The vampire that was trying to get the attention (fat chance) of the demon mage then threw a horrified look over his shoulder, when he heard the yells of alarm coming from the other monsters in their circle, who shrank away towards each other, leaving a sudden gap in the circle of unearthly fiends. A gap where the pair of shadow creatures were presently drifting forward, right at the cowering vampire pressing himself up against the magical ward.

The other vampires and demons in the circle now shrieked at the top of their lungs, at the exact moment Faith blinked in shock. With eye-blurring speed, the pair of shadows had…moved?…leapt?…shifted towards the center of the ring, and then back again equally swiftly, returning to their former place in the Shadow Court's circle around their prey. That specific word was the only way to describe the remaining demons, considering what had just happened to the cringing vampire. Before this blood-drinker with its superhuman reflexes could even move, it had been absorbed, drawn into, sucked up, fell into - _eaten_ - by the shadows during the fraction of an instant these eerie creatures had been in contact with the vampire.

"_Shit!_" a shocked Faith blurted out, snapping her head over to see how Willow was taking this. The Slayer's mood wasn't improved by seeing this witch's mouth hanging open at what the redhead had just witnessed. Turning back her attention to the factory center, Faith watched with awe at what next transpired.

In streaks of black faster than even her own Slayer speed, the rest of the Shadow Court, save for one, now attacked. Half of the remaining demons instantly vanished from existence, absorbed into the darkness of the six wraiths, with the others then making a frantic break for survival from their circle, trying to escape past the shadows into the factory. However, none of the rest of the monsters got away any further than a few steps during their unsuccessful flight, with these demons also being collected and/or consumed.

A stunned Faith observing all this finally noticed something else, which brought to mind what had been told to the New Council members at their meeting with the Charmed sisters. Sure enough, one of the shadows hadn't moved at all, with the others of its kind doing all the work of overcoming the demons. When that event was at last finished, the six shadows then drifted towards the motionless shade, until they formed themselves into a line, with their unresponding comrade in the middle of the row, facing the last of their quarry.

Giving a terrified look at his uncanny adversaries, Ig'yrul the Sorcerer hurriedly began a dimensional teleportation spell, madly waving his arms until he was suddenly distracted.

"Oh, _no,_ you don't!" was angrily hissed into Faith's ear, and as the surprised Slayer turned her head at that unexpected comment, she saw a now-tangible Willow having a furious look on her face, as the witch firmly pointed a very stern index finger at the demon mage about to escape. Whose attempted getaway was abruptly interrupted when that sorcerer's hands promptly burst into flames from an utterly unanticipated magical assault.

Howling in surprised agony, Ig'yrul frantically beat his fiery hands against the front of his robes, until the burning stopped. Whimpering while thrusting these injured parts of his body into his armpits, the demon then wildly looked around to see who'd just done that, only to stare right into the upper part of the shadow creature that a mere moment before had been in the middle of the line of its comrades. Freezing solid in sheer shock, an evil sorcerer from another dimension who'd come to this world to wreck havoc and devastation upon the innocent now had his eyes bulge in utter disbelief, as this mage watched the shadow creature just a foot away from the outer surface of his protective magical shields wards slowly lean forward, until absolute blackness touched the wards, which then at once vanished.

A fraction of a second later, so did Ig'yrul the Sorcerer.

"_Goddamnit,_ Red!" snarled Faith, as she anxiously eyed the shadow that had handily disposed of the demon mage slowly drift back into the line of the other beings of pure darkness. "What the _fuck _was that for?"

An indignant Willow hissed back at a Slayer paying no attention at all to her, as Faith kept on looking away from the witch, "It had to be done! That was a really nasty piece of work, and it was about to take off. We'd have had to track it down later, and only the Goddess knows how much misery it could've caused until then!"

Her gaze still fixed upon a certain spot in the center of the factory, Faith said hollowly, "Yeah, well, good for you, 'cept we just got those shadow guys' attention now."

Snapping her head around, a startled Willow then watched the entire line of the Shadow Court hovering a few inches above the concrete floor also slowly but inexorably gliding right towards the pair of New Council representatives.


	5. Chapter 5

A determined look abruptly appeared on Willow's face, and she stepped around Faith, ignoring that Slayer's sudden yelp of anxiety, as the witch took a few more paces out of their hiding place, to then stand at the edge of the large space in the center of the factory, all while facing the Shadow Court continuing to approach nearer.

Spitting out some extremely vile obscenities, Faith effortlessly hopped the few yards necessary to land lightly at Willow's left side, to then start gritting, "Are ya outta yer fuckin' mind? Those things moved faster than me, plus how the hell can I land a single punch on anythin' that's like a smoke cloud until it gobbles ya up?" During her furious rant in her unexpectedly-thicker Boston accent, Faith hadn't stopped staring at the shadow creatures still advancing towards the pair of humans.

Willow calmly advised, while also regarding the strange beings, "Relax, Faith, I set up the teleportation spell to work automatically if they get too close- Huh." That surprised grunt was caused by the abrupt halt of the line of shadows, leading the bemused witch to glance over and meet Faith's own boggled expression, with the Slayer at once putting to words what they were both thinking.

"Did they just understand what ya said?"

Giving an uncertain shrug, Willow now developed a sudden gleam of inquisitiveness in her eyes, as she turned back to the Shadow Court floating there and otherwise immobile in their line of darkness. Clearing her throat, the witch then tentatively lifted up her right hand in a quick wave at those silent beings, while also cautiously directing her next words towards them. "Er, hello. Can you understand me?"

For the next few moments, nobody in the factory moved or acted, either by Slayer, witch, or shadow, until Faith finally leaned over to Willow and said out of the corner of her mouth while still keeping a suspicious eye upon those possible opponents facing them, "Looks like a big nothin'. Why don't you use your mojo on 'em and find- _Hey!_"

Every single one of the Shadow Court had just vanished, accompanied by Faith's yell of surprise. Right after that, the brunette woman abruptly cringed at the furious screech of her name right into the Slayer's ear, uttered at a wineglass-shattering decibel level.

"FAITH!"

Recovering from her flinch, a sheepish Faith turned to look at a truly annoyed Red Witch glaring at the other woman. As she watched Willow take in a deep breath in preparation for what was clearly going to be a world-class scolding, Faith desperately tried to think of something, anything, to head her off, and managed to come up with, "Hey, Red, there's no way you can say that was my fault! For alla ya know, they just 'membered they left somethin' on the stove an' they headed home 'fore it boiled over!"

A very quiet, very menacing voice now replied, "Oh, so it was just a big coincidence that they took off right when you announced I might be about to use magic on them?" The simmering look given to Faith by Willow during her sarcastic question had actual heat waves arising from the air at head level between then, as their gazes locked.

Putting a dignified expression on her own features, Faith drew herself up, folded her arms across her chest, and intoned, "That's my story, an' I'm stickin' to it."

A disbelieving glare was now bestowed upon a poker-faced Faith, until after several more uncomfortable moments, Willow threw up her hands in utter disgust and stomped a few steps away, to then glower around at the empty center of the factory. Carefully watching until she judged the witch's temper had managed to cool off a bit, Faith sidled closer to the red-haired woman, and clearing her throat, the Slayer risked asking, "Uh, _did_ ya get anythin' offa those things?"

Willow's aggravated stare towards Faith sent a clear message that this wasn't over, but then the witch's expression then became more thoughtful, as she told the other woman, "You first. How did your Slayerness react to the Shadow Court?"

Feeling relieved at how things were back to business with them both, Faith now concentrated hard in her mind, inwardly going over the events of the last few minutes, until this now-puzzled woman told her friend, "That's kinda weird, ya know? I got the usual nasty sense from the vamps and other demons, but even after those assholes got wiped out, I couldn't pick up anythin' that felt like really big evil from any of the shadows. There was some badness on 'em, yeah, but…well, it was like 'em, but not really 'em, if that makes sense to ya, Red."

Shaking her head, Faith then looked hopefully at Willow frowning over this. After considering for a few moments over what she'd just heard, the witch slowly said to Faith, "Was it like trying to look into the shadows with your eyes? Like, you could see the surface, but not deeper?"

"Yeah!" excitedly agreed Faith, watching Willow now give a satisfied nod. As the former Sunnydale native met the Slayer's interested expression, the red-haired woman began to explain.

"Faith, I managed to get a bit of that myself through my magic. Not all that much - I still have no idea who or what they were, why they're doing this, or anything else. But you're right, there's something on them that's not actually part of those things. Something to do with magic."

At those last words, a flicker of realization abruptly appeared on Willow's face that suddenly became intent, as she followed the trail of thought that had just appeared in her mind. Faith scrupulously kept quiet this time, afraid to interrupt what her friend was thinking about. Eventually, her patience was rewarded, when Willow blinked at the other woman, and eagerly announced, "I _thought_ it was familiar! Faith, I've come across something like this a few times before, but not exactly, which is why I had to figure it out. What we've got here is a curse!"

A taken-aback Faith had to dubiously ask, "A…curse?"

Willow beamed at the Slayer, her sudden good mood clearly evident as the witch went on to explain. "Some kind of malignant or malevolent spell was obviously cast upon the Shadow Court. That's what you sensed, and so did I. Unfortunately, that's all we know for sure. I still don't know exactly what kind of curse it is, what it does, who cast it- Goddess, the Shadow Court might have even wanted to be cursed in the first place!"

"Oh," uncertainly commented a mystified Faith, who eyed Willow standing there. "Well, Red, so what do we do now? Are those shadow things comin' back?"

Willow firmly shook her head. "I really doubt that, Faith. There's no reason for them to do so, but at least I can get busy studying the magic here, to see if I can find out anything else." A distant look began to appear on the witch's features, as she began planning her mystical investigation, only to be interrupted by a voice having a hint of begging in it.

"Hey, Red, can I help? Doesn't seem like anythin' else I can do, ya know." Faith hopefully watched her friend blink in surprise at this sudden request, as Willow then agreeably shrugged, and came over to the Slayer. Stopping by Faith, the witch then reached out to start pulling and tugging upon the other woman's body, as the startled Slayer allowed this to be done to herself, with the increasingly-bewildered brunette's limbs being moved to end up with Faith in a rather peculiar posture, as Willow chattered away.

"What you're going to do is really important, Faith. Now, you need to stay exactly like that until I'm done, but don't worry, this'll help." At those last words, Willow casually pointed her finger at Faith, nodded once, and then stepped away from Faith now frozen in her current stance of standing there, legs together, left arm at her side and crooked like she was carrying something there, and right arm held straight up to the roof, fingers slightly opened as if to grasp an invisible object, and lastly, the apprehensive woman's face had been moved into a position of staring straight ahead.

Strolling into Faith's sightline, a snickering Willow then waved her hands, as a full-length mirror shimmered into existence before the Slayer, while at the same instant, Faith's outer clothing magically changed into a Statue of Liberty costume, complete with the addition of a spiked crown resting on her head.

The only part of Faith's magically-restrained body that she could move was her mouth, which promptly roared, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YA DOIN', WILLOW?"

"Keeping you busy, just like you asked, Faith," blandly replied the witch, as she sat down on the concrete floor at the exact spot where the demon sorcerer had vanished after being consumed by the shadow creature. Crossing her legs, Willow continued in a voice having a giggle about to break loose any second now, "The Lady of the Lamp does a perfectly fine job out in New York Harbor, keeping her mouth shut and not screwing up things for other people!"

"You dirty-"

"Ah-ha!" gleefully interrupted Willow, warningly waving her finger with the mojo at the incensed Slayer. "Miss Liberty's a nice old lady who doesn't say any bad words at all, and you won't either-"

Frantically blurting out the first thing that came to mind, an immobile Faith protested, "Wait a da- goshdarned minute! I got an actual question!"

Still keeping her finger ready, Willow looked a bit intrigued, as Faith breathed a short sigh of relief, before grumpily asking, "Ya were able to find those shadow things when they appeared right off earlier tonight, so why can't you find 'em now?"

Willow sadly shook her head, while at the same time zapping Faith into silence, as the witch went on to inform a mute, fuming Slayer, "The curse stopped completely manifesting itself when the Shadow Court disappeared. It's still working, but not at its full power. Until it starts again, or if I manage to get lucky or find out something about that spell, there's no way I can trace it. Right now, the only thing I can sense about it is that it's somewhere in the San Francisco area, which means the curse could be _anywhere!_"

* * *

Actually, it was at 1882 Girard Street.

In the brightly-lit kitchen of a Victorian house a few hours before dawn, a man with hollow eyes looked around at the haggard faces of his family. Nobody spoke, but they all clutched their cups of coffee and hot chocolate, as if holding onto their very sanity.

The man seated with his children clustered around himself at the kitchen table felt a sudden, overpowering wave of guilt. He was supposed to protect his loved ones, but he had absolutely _no _idea how to deal with this! Their nightmarish existence had begun a few months ago without any possible warning, and they'd all had to live with it ever since for one night every month, while during the rest of the time being totally ignorant of what was happening to three men and three girls.

Danny Tanner hugged his daughters holding tightly onto him, and they silently returned his embrace, with DJ and Stephanie reluctantly relaxing their grip after a minute. Michelle continued to bury her face into his pajama top, as she obviously continued to remember tonight's events. Danny could only kiss the top of her tousled head, as he grieved over what his youngest daughter had seen and done that no child should ever experience. Nor did it help that for some mysterious reason, his littlest girl was somehow duplicating herself every time the full moon appeared!

Still keeping his lips pressed against Michelle's hair, Danny abruptly felt an overwhelming sense of fatigue fog his mind and turn his limbs into lead. Just barely managing to lift his head, the widower looked across the kitchen table at his brother-in-law Jesse and their best friend Joey, with both of these men also beginning to sag in utter weariness in their chairs. Whimpers coming from his children also showed that these girls were feeling as well the culminating effects of whatever was happening to them all. Judging from past experience, they had barely enough time to get back to their beds and instantly fall asleep, to wake up the next morning without any memories whatsoever of the incidents of the previous night. Though, a month from now, when the moon again became full, the family would once again be forced into their strange, tormented reality of attacking and destroying monsters that nobody living in their home had ever dreamed really existed.

Staggering upwards from his chair, Danny picked up Michelle in his arms, and he lurched out of the kitchen towards the house stairs in the front room. The others trailed along after him, all equally exhausted and maintaining their weary silence, knowing that any protest or complaint was totally futile. Shifting his youngest daughter's weight in his arms as the girl pressed her face against Danny's chest, the man trudged up the stairs, feeling welcome oblivion coming nearer, and with only the faintest spark of curiosity in his mind about the odd encounter with those two strange women when the family had finished tonight's task.

Who were they, and why had they been there?


	6. Chapter 6

Using her fork to cut into her third stack of syrup-drenched pancakes, Faith grinned to herself at the exasperated grumbling coming over from the other side of their hotel room dining table. There, surrounded by thumbed-through stacks of books, scrolls, tomes, and manuscripts, enough to stock a small library, sat an annoyed-looking Willow quickly flipping through her latest choice of literature and evidently continuing her total lack of success in her search for information about what had happened last night.

Faith hid her sudden smirk with a mouthful of flapjacks. This almost made up for the couple of hours in the early part of this morning, when a frozen Faith had been forced to watch Willow do nothing interesting at all, except for meditating in the factory where they'd encountered the Shadow Court, trying to learn more about those strange creatures. Finally, the witch had given up, gotten off the floor, removed her immobility spell from Faith, and then they'd both teleported back to their hotel. When the irritated Slayer had then crankily gone off to her bedroom to grab a few hours' sleep, at that point Faith had also thrown a parting glower over her shoulder at the other woman in the room, which was ignored by a gesturing redhead whose attention was primarily concentrated upon the numerous books she was teleporting from the New Council headquarters, with these appearing from out of thin air to then drop with soft 'thuds' onto the dining table by the witch.

By the break of noon, when an energized Faith, unreservedly ready for breakfast or lunch or brunch or who-cares-what-it's-called-as-long-as-it's-food, had at last wandered out of her bedroom, dressed in a clean, low-cut t-shirt and close-fitting jeans, and finishing drying her hair from the shower, Willow had been sitting there encircled by stacks of discarded books and still commencing her fruitless search. A red-eyed glare had been the only response to Faith's deadpan question, "Any luck?"

A quick call then to room service resulted in the subsequent delivery of an overloaded food cart being pushed into the room by a worn-out bellboy, who'd been tipped by Faith both with money and with her giving him a quick flash of her cleavage, and ending in the Slayer's appreciative glance at the young man's departing tight buns in the equally tight pants. Strolling over to the table with the coffeepot in one hand and an extra-large mug in the other, Faith stopped by Willow fixedly staring at an ancient manuscript that had just turned out to be of no help whatsoever.

Recognizing the signs, the Slayer hastily filled the mug to its brim with the steaming, aromatic liquid, put it down by an unresponsive witch, and then tiptoed away. Only when Faith heard from behind herself the long, loud slurp of a coffee cup being drained to the last drop in a single swallow did the Slayer allow the maniac grin she'd managed to previously suppress to finally blossom on her face.

As Faith continued to polish off her first enormous meal of the day that was pleasantly accompanied by the indignant mutters of complaint from her companion, the brunette woman's mood was further improved by making the final decision on where in the Scottish castle to inscribe her latest literary creation, inspired by and all about a certain Wiccan who really shouldn't have done that to Faith last night. Not when the totally-bored Slayer had tried to break the monotony of being turned into the Statue of Liberty by coming up with the most obscene limericks she could invent regarding one Willow Rosenberg.

Faith was really proud of one specific poem where she'd managed to rhyme 'witch', 'bitch', and 'Stitch', with its references expressed at more than one level of allusion concerning alien bestiality. Yep, when she got back to the castle and had her earliest chance to sneak into the downstairs men's room, that particular gem was gonna be carved in its own place of honor over the first urinal on the left-

"_YEEE!_" was yelped in a sudden shriek of agony from Willow on the other end of the hotel table. In an equally rapid blur of action, Faith jumped out of her seat at the table with such force that she landed out in the middle of the room at the same time her knocked-over chair hit the floor. The Slayer stood there, body tense and quivering, totally ready for whatever act of violence would be instantly necessary, holding her current weapon in an expert grip that clearly showed any unanticipated foe intruding onto their peaceful breakfast was going to be immediately forked to death.

Faith was at her most dangerous now, eyes darting around the hotel room, eager to Slay, and also managing to ignore the fact that her napkin tucked into the collar of her t-shirt as a makeshift bib spotted with numerous maple syrup droplets had flipped up during the woman's leap to stick to her lower face. After a few more moments, when there seemed to be no possibility of incipient combat, Faith's left hand flashed upwards to rip off the napkin and throw it to the floor, as the brunette woman now finally looked at a wincing Willow rubbing the sides of her head with her fingertips, to demand of her friend, "What the hell happened, Red?"

"My link with the Shadow Court, that started the first time I sensed them, it's gone, Faith!" cried a shocked witch in her chair, lowering her hands to rest palm down onto the tabletop, while absently pushing away a massive tome about demonic creatures. Willow then frowned at what Faith was still keeping ready in her right hand, as an abruptly-distracted redhead asked with actual bemusement in her voice, "Faith, what's with the fork?"

A quick flick of her wrist sent spinning upwards into the air that named piece of cutlery, in a graceful curve over Faith's head and behind her, twirling end-over-end, until the fork reached the Slayer's former spot at the table with her unfinished meal on the remaining plates there, to then unerringly sink prongs-first into the top of the last stack of pancakes, with the handle now perfectly vertical and quivering slightly. Faith hadn't even bothered to turn her head to check on this deft accomplishment, instead keeping her own serious glare upon a now-gaping Willow. "Forget the fuckin' fork! I thought you said you couldn't use that connection to track 'em down!"

"Er, yes," gulped Willow, wondering if she actually dared to ask Faith to do that trick again (judging from the glower she was getting from the Slayer, probably not). The witch went on, "It's - it _was_ too faint to get anything more than the fact the curse was working, and that it was somewhere in this city!"

"_Was?_" incredulously said Faith, staring at the grimacing witch nodding back in her own utterly perplexed mood, as Willow tried to explain.

"It can't be anything else, Faith - not some kind or shielding of magical concealment on that curse. No, from what just hit me, why I yelled, it was like you tracking a line of footprints on the ground, and then having those marks burst into flame in front of you! I tell you, that curse was _destroyed!"_


	7. Chapter 7

Five minutes earlier:

Danny Tanner walked into the kitchen from the front room, where he'd been spending several hours of his Saturday at home tidying up, including using a lint brush on the sofa cushions for a truly immaculate effect. Seeing his children seated at the kitchen table busily occupied in their own weekend activities (Michelle coloring, Stephanie playing with her Barbies, and Donna Jo working on a school report), their father said cheerfully, "Girls, it's time for lunch. Take your stuff off the table, and I'll start getting things ready. Have you seen your uncles?" That last question had been directed to his oldest child looking up from closing her notebook, as the other girls also started picking up after themselves.

"They're downstairs in their office, Daddy," replied a bubbly Donna Jo. "We've been hearing them trying to find a rhyme for 'hamburger and fries' for the last fifteen minutes." She smiled at her father chuckling to himself over his best friends' attempt to come up with a successful advertising jingle for their latest commission involving a local chain of fast-food restaurants.

"They must be really hungry by now," dryly commented Danny. "Go call them up here; I'll put down the tablecloth."

As the man went to the proper kitchen counter for this furniture cover to catch any stray crumbs of food that might mar the gleaming polish he'd lovingly applied to the top of the table a few days ago, his daughter obediently went to the head to the basement stairs, and she hollered down into the small workplace of Jesse Katsopolis and Joey Gladstone: "Guys, lunchtime!"

In the basement, out of sight, but not out of hearing, a guitar being idly strummed abruptly stilled, with a man's voice then arising from the depths to warily ask, "Are we having a hamburger and fries?"

A giggling Donna Jo managed to whoop in answer, "No!"

"Oh, good. I was really starting to hate those words," ruefully said the unseen man, ending his statement with an emphatic twang from his guitar.

"Jesse, I _told_ you that we should have taken the job for Pirate Pete's Café, Home of the Most Delicious Fish Ever," rebuked another male voice from the basement that sounded to be the same age as the first speaker, albeit a bit more cheerful, as was promptly demonstrated by the next enthusiastic declaration. "After all, you can't go wrong with the word 'fish' 'cause there's so many rhymes for it - dish, wish, accomplish-"

"Squish."

The second voice now said in a completely baffled tone at what it had just been sourly told by their musically-talented friend, "_Squish_? Why would we want to put _that_ in a radio ad?"

The first voice then mock-snarled, "I mean, that's what I would have done to your head if you'd actually signed us up for that job! The guy with the fake eye patch wanted to pay us our weight in fishsticks!"

In return, the second voice pointed out in a somewhat hurt tone, "But I _like_ fishsticks."

"You _are_ a fishstick."

Gleefully eavesdropping to the normal affectionate bickering of their uncles downstairs, the girls were snickering together as they began to leave the kitchen, taking their stuff upstairs to their bedrooms, to then come back down for lunch. Also listening with a smile on his face, Danny carefully laid his ironed, snow-white tablecloth upon the now-cleared table, making a few final tweaks to adjust the cover into the just-right position, and he then took a step back to appreciate the pure whiteness of this sheet that had been thoroughly laundered into a state of hygiene matching that of a surgical blanket.

The sound of footsteps coming upstairs to the kitchen caused Danny to casually glance over and then see the handsome face of Jesse, his brother-in-law, arise into view during that man's ascent of the staircase. Following right after, to be seen over Jesse's shoulder, was a taller man possessing the jovial features of Joey, best friend of Danny and Jesse since grade school and honorary uncle of the Tanner girls. During all this, none of the people in the house knew that their lives would alter for the better in the very next moments.

_BANG!_

The back door of the kitchen into the rear yard was abruptly flung open to smash against the inside wall, as a small, indecorous, feminine hurricane in the form of an energized young girl with a thrilled look on her face now burst into the room, wildly brandishing something in her right hand during her excited sweeps of that arm, all while bellowing in a piercing screech at the top of her lungs. "DEEJ, YOU WON'T BELIEVE THIS-!"

A lot of things happened in the next few seconds. Not for Danny and the girls, though; they stood there frozen in their tracks at witnessing the usual over-the-top entrance of one Kimmy Gibbler, both Donna Jo's BFF and next-door neighbor, who always tactlessly took these facts as the perfect excuse for barging into the Tanner house whenever she pleased. Most of the inhabitants of that home had resignedly accepted that this gaily-inconsiderate girl would be around them forever, but one man was still grimly fighting the good fight, and in the coming days, Jesse would feel truly vindicated about his determination to keep Gibbler as far away from himself as possible.

Not that Jesse was thinking about this at that exact second; instead, the man still in the middle of coming up the staircase was regarding with sudden, utter horror Kimmy's hand tightly holding some kind of pure black object that looked really, really hard and was coming right at his nose with all the speed of that girl's flailing arm as she kept barreling into the kitchen, completely unaware of a flinching Jesse standing in the staircase at her right side. Desperately attempting to keep from being clouted in the face (*not the face!*), Jesse threw up his hands to catch or block whatever Gibbler was going to wallop him with, only to forget to pay sufficient attention to the rest of his body, which was occupied with other things. Such as being in the process of climbing some steep stairs.

Jesse's right foot was about to come down on a tread, the horizontal part of a step, until distracted by everything else, the man stomped down that foot much too hard while trying to brace himself, causing his boot to skid backwards off the edge of the tread and finally lose his balance, for once and all.

With his hands still coming up to shield his face at the same time Jesse felt himself beginning to fall backwards, the man made another bad decision, as he promptly latched onto Kimmy's right wrist with both of his hands in a frantic attempt to hang onto this in order to regain his balance. That did keep a falling Jesse from being punched in the face, but any momentarily relief he might have felt about this was immediately wiped out by the abrupt realization of the grave consequences of this. Namely, what was about to happen to someone weighing over twice as much as the young girl he'd just grabbed and was still pointlessly holding by her wrist.

Kimmy's ebullient shout at her friend changed into a strident shriek of pure fright, as she was taken totally by surprise at being yanked off her feet and pulled into the basement staircase, to now begin her toppling descent along with Jesse. Though, even then, that girl along with the rest of the house, managed to hear an even shriller scream of ultimate terror by Joey lower down on the stairs at seeing what was coming directly at him. In the next instant, this struggling stand-up comedian was swept up and carried along by the fleshly avalanche, that in its thudding journey of bouncing along the steps downwards to the hard basement floor, caused the entire house to shake.

When things finally quieted down, the utter silence ensuing from the basement made Danny and the girls at last break out of their shock over everything that had happened in the last couple of seconds, to then promptly rush towards the stair doorway and stand there, peering down the steps at the tangle of unmoving bodies piled up at the foot of the stairs.

Just as all of the worried onlookers up in the kitchen were drawing in their breaths, about to start simultaneously demanding if anyone was hurt, offering to call the hospital, asking if they were really dead down there, and claiming dibs on their lunch, their beginning outburst were abruptly cut off by a very deadpan voice coming from below them, dryly asking, "Brother Jesse, would that large object digging into my cranium be by any chance your elbow in my ear?"

An equally sarcastic voice then replied, "I'm afraid so, Brother Joseph. Permit me to remove it at once, and perchance could you also shift your knee from my stomach?"

"It would be a honor, Brother Jesse."

"Think nothing of it, Brother Joseph."

Just as Danny and his daughters were sighing in relief, a loud feminine yelp of pure outrage blasted up from the basement.

"YOU JERKS BUSTED UP MY BIRTHDAY PRESENT!"


	8. Chapter 8

"Hey, watch the nails!" complained Kimmy, although the girl was a bit more subdued than usual in her protest. Perhaps this had something to do with the maniac gleam in the eyes of her friend's father, as he vigorously scrubbed her fingers nearly raw with an antiseptic wipe. Or, maybe it was due to how Mr. T (as Kimmy liked to refer to her next door neighbor), was currently dressed.

The brash young lady knew that this man was a total clean freak obsessed with keeping his house neat and tidy, but it seemed going a bit too far for him to put on protective goggles and a face mask, a rubber apron and elbow-length gloves of the same material, and finally, a plastic hairnet. Just so he could wipe clean her hands after she'd dumped her ruined birthday present onto the kitchen table. While she was thinking about this, Kimmy managed to miss how the rest of the family, even Michelle with her incessant curiosity, stayed as far away from this table as they could possibly get. Though, even if she'd actually noticed, Kimmy would have just figured they knew better than to get near the big guy when he was on a dirt-destroying crusade.

At last satisfied, Danny let go of Kimmy's fingers, as she then grumpily snatched back her hands. He went over to the kitchen table and dropped the used wipes onto the small heap of black clay fragments lying there. The head of the Tanner household next strode over to the basement doorway, where a truly out-of-the-ordinary electrical appliance leaned against the jamb. This strange object had a handle sticking out of the top of a long metal cylinder with a wide nozzle at its other end, plus it was studded all over with more switches and buttons than the cockpit of a modern fighter jet. Danny picked up his top of the line vacuum cleaner with the serene grace of a samurai warrior drawing his sword and about to begin a battle to the death. Without a word to anyone and also without a single glance back, he descended to his destiny.

"Your dad finally gone crackers, Deej?" was Kimmy's sarcastic comment, as she stared after a hairnet disappearing out of sight downstairs.

Hearing that impolite question, Stephanie promptly huffed, "How rude!" as she stood by the kitchen oven. This middle child was holding onto Michelle, so when that annoyed rejoinder was sent over the head of the youngest girl in the room, that provoked little lady confined herself to sticking out her tongue at Kimmy.

Before a noisy quarrel could actually begin between her friend and her sisters, Donna Jo tried to head things off by hastily changing the subject. "Kimmy, what'd you mean, your birthday present? Your birthday was, uh, five months ago!"

From the rear kitchen corner where he'd been comparing bruises with Joey, Jesse looked up and sourly contributed, "Or, as I like to put it, 'The Day That Shall Not Be Spoken Of Ever Again.'"

Kimmy cheerfully rebuked her favorite enemy, "Hey, shampoo boy, I _told_ you to look out where the rental elephant my mom hired for the party had been!"

Joey glared back at the sniggering girl, growling, "That was a five-hundred-dollar pair of boots I had to throw away, because I'd never get them clean again! I still think you waited until the very last second before warning me!"

A little desperately, Donna Jo tried again, "Kimmy, present?"

"Oh, that." As Kimmy opened her mouth to continue, she had to momentarily pause, as a bone-shaking whine like the Hoover Dam turbines running at full power came from the basement. Everyone in the kitchen then had to grab hold of something fixed to the floor in order to keep from being pulled towards the basement doorway by the sudden suction coming from there. Raising her voice over Danny Tanner's robust vacuum cleaner that was evidently operating at its highest level, Kimmy half-shouted, "You remember my Uncle Melvin?"

Next to Jesse, Joey perked up, as he enthusiastically called out, "You mean the guy who's a sailor, with all those tattoos and a great story for every one of them?"

"Yeah. I don't know if he forgot or if it got hung up in the mail, but a week after my birthday, a package came from him, all the way from the Far East. Mom put it on my bed, but she never told me, so I must have shoved it over the wall side, out of sight, that night when I went to bed." Kimmy thankfully went back to her normal speaking voice when the vacuum cleaner downstairs finally turned off and the air in the kitchen stopped rushing down the basement stairway. "I didn't find it until today, when I went looking under there. Say, did you know that if you peel off the green fuzz on top, a really old pizza slice still tastes pretty good?"

Donna Jo tried to ignore the simultaneous gagging of the rest of her family. Frankly, she'd heard weirder stuff from her eccentric friend. Waving a hand at the kitchen table, the oldest Tanner daughter persisted, "So, what was it anyway, your birthday present from your uncle?"

Abruptly reminded of the recent destruction of her gift celebrating her special day, Kimmy sent a scorching glare across the kitchen towards the pair of jerks whose fault this totally was, with the oddball girl answering crankily, "It was some kind of clay statue, a really wicked ghost figure wrapped all in shadows, just the thing to creep you out. It would have been perfect on the dresser, right next to my chattering teeth and the autographed picture of Doctor Dire from the Creature Features Midnight Channel! But, no, just before I could show it to everyone, Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dumber there had to bust it into a million pieces!"

As an outraged Jesse and Joey were about to defend themselves, they were interrupted by a stern voice coming from elsewhere in the kitchen. Standing in the basement doorway, where he'd come up after making sure with his vacuum that not a single infinitesimal speck remained uncollected of that strangely-distressing object that Kimmy Gibbler had brought into his house, Danny Tanner firmly informed everyone there, "People, enough! Kimmy, I'm sorry about your present, but if you'd been a little more careful coming in here, it wouldn't have broken. Not to mention that Joey and Jesse and you could've really been hurt falling down the stairs. Still, everybody's okay, so let's leave it at that, all right?"

Deep pouts instantly developed upon the faces of those persons that Danny had directed his comments towards, until these expressions eventually changed into grudging acceptance. Probably because of Danny's own magnified stern look delivered through his protective goggles at the two men and the young girl. Satisfied at the grumpy silence from the others responsible for today's excitement, Danny now placed the vacuum cleaner he'd been holding onto the kitchen table, and then the man started stripping off his cleaning outfit, adding this garb to the growing pile on top of the furniture.

Watching with utmost fascination as her father finished removing what he'd been wearing to cleanse his family's home, Michelle's inquisitiveness couldn't be contained when Danny finally reached down to grab the edges of the tablecloth resting on top, to then flip these cloth sides over onto his discarded equipment. "Daddy, what're you doing?"

Smiling at his youngest daughter, Danny used both hands to grip the neck of the cloth bag he'd just created. The man then heaved up to lift everything off the table - the vacuum cleaner, his protective gear, and lastly, the black fragments of the little clay statue that had created a truly sick feeling among everyone living in their house. Grunting, their father managed to say, "I'm getting rid of all this, honey. It's going into the garbage can, every bit of it, and I'm just glad today is trash day. I might even ask for a new garbage can, too." Glancing at the other men across the kitchen, Danny added, "Guys, will you get the door and the back gate, please?"

Heads vigorously nodding, Joey and Jesse bustled forward past the girls, and they helped their friend leave the house with his burden, to then finish the job of disposing everything that remained of the unknowingly-cursed statuette that had inadvertently brought evil into the lives of the Tanner family.

Shrugging at her pal over the nutty behavior of the grown-ups, Kimmy then made a prompt beeline for the refrigerator, to hopefully check out the possibility of any yummy munchies inside, resignedly watched by the other girls who were all too familiar with this habit of Donna Jo's goofy friend. Bent over to poke through the insides of this food-chilling storage unit having had its door yanked wide open, Kimmy became preoccupied with cramming into her wide mouth anything in there she found edible, so she missed the return of the three men, at least until Danny jovially announced, "Group hug, everyone!"

Straightening up and turning around, Kimmy interestedly watched how the entire Tanner family plus the other two guys now gathered around together in a circle in the middle of the kitchen, to then put their arms around each other in a mass embrace that appeared particularly fervent to the young girl with bulging cheeks. As she munched away at her immense mouthful, to finally perform an massive gulp that consumed the entire leftovers of last night's pot roast, Kimmy rolled her eyes in exasperation at seeing yet again that wacky routine everyone in this household seemed to go through at least once every single day here.

Feeling that it was time to head back to her own home now that nobody was paying herself the slightest bit of attention, Kimmy started to leave the kitchen by the rear door, edging past the clump of people bunched up together in the center of this room. Just as she was about to make her getaway, a free arm shot out from the gathering to clamp onto Kimmy's shoulder with strong fingers, immediately pulling the young girl right into the group hug.

This youngster's muffled squawk of alarm at that unexpected act trailed off, when a rather squashed Kimmy now lifted up her head pressed against someone's stomach, to look right into Jesse smirking down at her and still maintaining his firm grip onto her shoulder. A very bemused man then half-heartedly groused, "I've got the weirdest hunch that this is somehow totally your fault, kid, but I'm also feeling too good at the moment to care all that much. So, you might as well join in the hug, Kimmy."

A cheerful mumble of agreement rose up from the rest of the people in their close embrace inside the kitchen, causing Kimmy's mouth to fall open in absolute shock. Still, a few seconds later, she managed to recover enough to allow a feisty look of pure mischief appear on her features, as Kimmy then cooed to the suddenly-wary man holding her close, "Does this mean I can call you Uncle Jesse now?"

"Don't push it, Gibbler."

* * *

A few miles away, Faith was standing absolutely still in their hotel room, arms dangling limply at her sides, while without moving her head, she warily studied from the corners of her eyes the red hair that was currently pressed up against the side of her face.

After a few more moments, when the unanticipated, intense hug being given to herself by Willow showed absolutely no sign of ever ending, an increasingly desperate Faith finally cleared her throat, and she cautiously said to the other woman, "Uh, Red, even if we wasn't in San Francisco itself, I'd ordinarily have no prob with you gettin' your gay on with anyone else, but I think I woulda remembered ever offerin' to join in the festivities with the other ladies, what with me preferrin' guys. Did I kinda send the wrong signals to ya in the last coupla minutes?"

A merry giggle was loudly uttered right into a flinching Faith's ear, as the Slayer also felt Willow's body pressed up against her shake in laughter. As the witch at last let go of the relieved brunette and took a step back, Faith wonderingly saw Willow wiping away tears of delight, as that redhead happily confided, "Oh, Faith! Don't worry, I'm not trying to lure you from the side of the straights. It's just that I suddenly had the oddest impulse to give the nearest member of my family the most affectionate hug possible."

"_What?_ "

"Yes," nodded Willow, who went on with a very thoughtful look now on her countenance. "I think it had something to do with the Shadow Court, now that it's all over, and let me tell you, I'm absolutely positive those beings are gone forever-"

"Never mind that!" Faith's disbelieving yelp had interrupted Willow, as the Slayer now incredulously regarded the surprised witch. Speaking in a tone of absolute doubt, Faith's Boston accent became thicker in her sudden stress, "Ya really think of _me _as part a' yer family? After what happened 'tween us - ya an' me - in Sunnyhell? I treated ya like crap when I took ya hostage, and I woulda turned ya over to the Mayor without a second thought!"

Willow merely looked back at Faith with her face absolutely calm, as she answered, "And as Dark Willow, I would have killed everyone in the world, you included, without a second thought."

Faith had to actually think that one over. She'd seen Red there in her really scary witchiness moods a few times since rejoining the Scooby Gang, but Xander and the others had wincingly confirmed that even those specific bloodcurdling events witnessed by the Slayer hadn't shown at all what the Wiccan was capable of when truly pushed to the brink. Despite herself, Faith had to admit, "Yeah, well, I been there. And…you can be more'n that. Not just you. Me, too. Took me long enough gettin' outta the dark, and it's always gonna be part a' me. But it ain't gonna be all of me, ever again, not if I can help it."

A gentle smile slowly grew on Willow's lips, as she softly replied, "Family helps, too. Xander and Buffy and Dawn and Giles, they keep an eye on me, and I'm glad for it. I keep an eye on them, so my family gets my help when they need it. You, too, Faith, if you want it."

There was quiet in the hotel room for several moments, as Faith felt her whole world shift over what she'd just been offered. An actual family, with all of its screw-ups and love and exasperation and kindness and…everything. To be accepted by one simple act. A yearning look on her features, the brunette woman slowly stepped over to where Willow was waiting, with Faith cautiously opening her arms. Willow didn't move at all until Faith apprehensively embraced her, as with a joyous smile, the witch hugged Faith back hard.

As they remained in their embrace, Willow chuckled into Faith's ear, "Hey, sister, if we time it right, like doing this again in front of the other Scoobies at the Cleveland house, I think we can fry everyone's brains there without the slightest problem."

Faith felt a wide grin break out on her face, as she whispered back into Willow's own ear, "I like yer thinkin', sis."


End file.
